Gaming Downside of buying a fake cart

[Fabbbrrr]

Hi all,

I've just bought a GBA 001 and a GBC, I don't own any game other than Mario Kart Super Circuit (original) and Donkey Kong NES classic (original).

Sooo... I was browsing ebay and saw a few sellers offering pokemon games and zelda games dirt cheap, like $5 and I wondered what the hell? there must be a catch on these...

Ebay LINK

Can you ELI5 what would be the difference between a real and a fake game on GBA or GBC?

I know that the battery could last less time.
Save might not work (but the seller states it does some times)
????

Thanks!

 

[Jayro]

I've bought a few fake carts on purpose from both eBay and AliExpress, and they all play and save fine.

 

[FAST6191]

Bootlegs/repros, the downsides thereof.

The GBA has gone through many stages of bootleg/repros

Some of the earlier ones are rather custom but clearly fake. Usually by claiming to have dozens of games on it, but not all and some had other tells.
Later ones adapted a DS expansion pack called the EZ 3 in 1 (there is a reason you will struggle to find a GBA sized one) in various ways (some flashed it and left it at that, some cut the write enable pins/traces, others did other things). These all use batteries, even for games that did not have battery backed saves originally. Also things like pokemon might not have the clocks that the original games had.
Newer ones still adapted existing carts and had a breakout board on them to go to another chip.
The latest seem to look pretty official, but instead of chips they have a chip that is wire bonded and epoxied in.

The build quality varies but was never good and usually was bad. The saves can also be a problem as the flash carts they are based on had problems, and being battery based you have that to consider as well.

If you are buying a hacked game then the hack may not be the newest version of the hack, may have trip ups in it for the bootleggers (especially if they tried to remove the "If you paid for this you got ripped off" screen and did not know what they were doing), the hacker likely did not OK or get anything for it and while the build quality of some above is bordering on OK these are usually bad.

If you don't find the notion of paying someone for pirated goods to itself be distasteful then good for you I guess, few care for it around here.

Short version. Buy a flash cart. Far better in the long run, and probably in the short run too and an EZ4 is not that expensive either .

 

[Jayro]

I bought Moemon that used FireRed as a base. Plays just fine, even gets past the spot in the woods that used to crash the game on me with no issues.

My Pokemon Crystal game works just fine, and has the clock crystal onboard. Plays and saves fine too.

 

[Lozz84]

I bought Zelda mining cap and a 12 in 1 game recently from Ali express , the quality was actually top notch and the games work perfectly and save as a real cartridge would , I was surprised as I took the gamble , also opened them up and there were no batteries inside but actual flash memory like the real ones

 

[jefffisher]

They have little to no resale value unless you try to pass them off as real but that would make you a bad guy.
Also some of them at random do occasionally lose their saves without reason or explaination one day after several months take one of your ten fake games out of the drawer to start playing and the only option is new game.

 

[Sliter]

Maybe you can find they cheaper in aliexpress, and there are good reviews of them
I'm kinda unlucky myself ... I got one zelda minishcap that don't saved, I reported the bug that made it unplayable, they told me that if I get something else, they would send me another zelda together ... right I was planning to get some other few games but I just got one, a Rhythm tengoku (fan translated patch)
It came but not the promised replacement. It's built quality was a bit lower than the zelda's one but the board seems to be the same, it just had some small freezes between minigames while but seems to be working nice and saving, but I just removed the card and later put again to play and first time, game don't load, second loaded but the save was lost ...
well so I gave up I hope I can re flash these or something, at least I could have fan translation or something idk
I think having (good) bootlegs would be nice if you don't want to play a overpriced amount for a physical original game, the pros that it could not lost the save if it's not battery based save, even if he original was. Like to get Shantae, I was panning getting an pirate because the original is gold priced, but with the lucky I have, better not and emulate somewhere else xp

Later ones adapted a DS expansion pack called the EZ 3 in 1 (there is a reason you will struggle to find a GBA sized one) in various ways (some flashed it and left it at that, some cut the write enable pins/traces, others did other things). These all use batteries, even for games that did not have battery backed saves originally. Also things like pokemon might not have the clocks that the original games had.

I have one DSlite slot2 cover shaped, I was panning using in a GBA housing and try playing in the original GBA so I could test stuff, but I think my battery already went dry ... These is small than the ones I know, idk about replacing XD
but I don't have a DSlite anymore to flash it so idk too xp

 

[FAST6191]

Plenty of people sanded the various parts off their EZ4 lites or 3 in 1s so as to have them work in a GBA or original DS. There is nothing electrically or mechanically special (no switches or tabs or anything) about the DS lite slot that prevents things from working elsewhere.
Equally if you are replacing the cart then you can get a bigger battery if you want one.

I don't know what it is like there on the second hand market ("It is so cheap here" being a phrase I have never heard uttered by someone wanting to play games in Brazil) but here and in the US I am seeing original model DS go for nothing, and if you only want it to flash it you can get a scratched screen one with broken hinges and an iffy battery if you wanted.

I bought Zelda mining cap and a 12 in 1 game recently from Ali express , the quality was actually top notch and the games work perfectly and save as a real cartridge would , I was surprised as I took the gamble , also opened them up and there were no batteries inside but actual flash memory like the real ones

Just to be a pedant I have to say Minish Cap used EEPROM saves.

 

[Sliter]

Plenty of people sanded the various parts off their EZ4 lites or 3 in 1s so as to have them work in a GBA or original DS. There is nothing electrically or mechanically special (no switches or tabs or anything) about the DS lite slot that prevents things from working elsewhere.
Equally if you are replacing the cart then you can get a bigger battery if you want one.

well I can try it latter but I'd need DS/lite to flash it anyway...

I don't know what it is like there on the second hand market ("It is so cheap here" being a phrase I have never heard uttered by someone wanting to play games in Brazil) but here and in the US I am seeing original model DS go for nothing, and if you only want it to flash it you can get a scratched screen one with broken hinges and an iffy battery if you wanted.

* yeah... you know, a GBa/GB bootleg pokemon being sold for like 15 dollars just because it's pokemon, and an original, for 35 or more is something crazy... maybe they think it's like wine, the older the better? lol a stupid nes game that no one values in US is like 30 dollars too xp so getting one in aliexpress for around 5 dollars are really cheap, even that it cost here how much an old game should cost haha
About the DS actually I wanted one again for my collection... I could get a broken too and fix it... I have one with boot problem that I'm wanting to fix it for a buddy of mine, but a guy want to sell me only a DS board for like 15 Dollars too(atually defective in the R button and top screen I think?), I heard that in US you can get a fully functional for it :/ problem is the shipping lol

 

[tbb043]

Can you ELI5 what would be the difference between a real and a fake game on GBA or GBC?

I know that the battery could last less time.
Save might not work (but the seller states it does some times)
????

Thanks!

The game itself could just fail.

Back when GBA was a current system even, trying to find real carts online was pretty tough. They were pretty much all bootlegs, easily noted if instead of sealed in box it was something stupid like "brand new, removed from box to save on shipping" and included a flattened box. What saved a buck by ruining the box? GBA games wouldn't be expensive to ship, even in box. Fortunately the game I was looking for got a rerelease and I could just get it at Best Buy a year or so later

 

[Todderbert]

I still use my EZFA 256 but requires I keep a running XP machine around. The newer flashcarts are good, I would look into those.

 

[Home_Rowed]

Anyone know of a specific AliExpress or eBay seller, selling those repurposed EZ Flash 3-in-1's? I want to get 2 to resolder the traces to have enough for 4 player multi pak games.

 

[Gyron_Oldvic]

I still use my EZFA 256 but requires I keep a running XP machine around. The newer flashcarts are good, I would look into those.

I still have my old EZFA 256mb. The EZFA client works in 'XP Mode' on Windows 7.

 

[Todderbert]

I still have my old EZFA 256mb. The EZFA client works in 'XP Mode' on Windows 7.

Really? I couldn't get my flash linker cable recognized in Win 7 no matter what I tried...I miss something?

 

[Gyron_Oldvic]

Really? I couldn't get my flash linker cable recognized in Win 7 no matter what I tried...I miss something?

The 'EZFA103E client' running in the Win7 (64bit Pro) XP Virtual Machine works fine for me. All I did was plug in the linker cable, then click on the the 'USB' button on the top bar in XP VM (as seen in pic below). Select 'USB Device - Attach'. Now install the 'xpsp1' drivers which come with the 'EZFA103E client'. Start the Client. It's worth noting, every time you disconnect the cable (on the PC side) and re-insert it, you must press the 'USB' button and select 'USB Device - Attach' again. I have the original v1 cable. If you have the v2, the original drivers should still work fine, but if not, you could try the E-cube drivers using the same installation procedure.
On a side note, I can't believe the original rechargeable button cell is still working in this thing.

 

[Jayro]

I still use my EZFA 256 but requires I keep a running XP machine around. The newer flashcarts are good, I would look into those.

A virtual machine would suffice.

 

[FAST6191]

Hmm, wonder if it is worth going back with Windows 7 or 10 and seeing what goes for a lot of these old carts.

The need XP thing largely came about because of Vista which has (had?) abysmal backwards compatibility for this sort of thing.

Granted that will probably be for the USB ones rather than the serial/parallel stuff.

 

[Todderbert]

I can't believe the original rechargeable button cell is still working in this thing.
View attachment 99407

thanks for the info. clueless I was. that button cell is sturdy as hell. I own three EZFA 256ers, and two were bone dead from not using them for five years. Set them up in my GBA SP and left the system on with a charger for 24 hours and now the batteries in the carts are working fine. My first EZFA that I still use, has never lost time or battery power.